To 'Ben Hur' producer Mark Burnett, a true Christian should not take too much credit for success since he could not have done it without God's grace.
"You have to make sure you don't feel like you deserve the credit or that it was because of you that it happened because it's [just] passing through you," he told The Christian Post in a recent interview.
He said if a person is used by God to spread hope to others, that person should never try to take the glory away from the Lord.
Burnett and his wife Roma Downey have been reaping success in their Christian production following a string of hit shows and movies such as "Survivor," "The Voice," "The Bible Series" and "Son of God."
For her part, Downey emphasise the need for Christian forgiveness and reconciliation—a virtue that is most timely to demonstrate following the Orlando nightclub mass shooting that left 50 people dead, including the lone gunman.
Coincidentally, forgiveness and reconciliation are also the themes in the couple's 2016 remake of "Ben-Hur," which will be released in 3D and Digital 3D in theatres on Aug. 12 internationally, and Aug. 19 in the U.S.
"We put this film together to impact culture with the message of love and forgiveness and reconciliation and that's needed now more than ever," Downey said at a Los Angeles screening of "Ben-Hur."
Asked how she and her husband hope to spread the message of forgiveness amid the air of anger and despair in America following the Orlando massacre, she plans to do so by sharing kindness one act at a time.
"At our production company, Lightworkers Media, we have a mantra that 'It's better to light one candle than curse the darkness.' It's something that we have been committed to doing in the content that we create. That there would be at the heart of it, hope and mercy and I think that this film at this time hopefully can offer some type of balm for the hurting world that we live in," Downey said.
"It's just a movie and we're just movie makers, but this film comes to the audience as an action adventure movie and it doesn't disappoint on that. It holds within it these more important deeper themes of reconciliation, forgiveness, love and of mercy. The best we can hope is that these things will touch and open hearts," she said.
"Ben-Hur" tells the story of Judah Ben-Hur (Jack Huston), a prince wrongly accused of treason by his own adopted brother Messala (Toby Kebbell), who is a Roman army officer. Messala removed Ben-Hur from his post and exiled him to become a slave, separating him from his family and the woman he loves, Esther (Nazanin Boniadi).
During his journey, Ben-Hur encounters Jesus Christ and is changed by his example. The lead character also meets Ilderim (Morgan Freeman), who becomes his mentor. He urges Ben-Hur to take revenge against his brother through a chariot race instead of directly killing him. He then prepares him for the deadly race, which is the movie's biggest action scene.
